Five

Here are some things I knew once about five-year old boys that I’d forgotten:

When you are a five-year old boy, making sounds with your body is absolutely hilarious, and so you do it as often as humanly possible even if nobody around you is nearly as amused as you are.

Five is the year when everyone keeps asking you if you’re excited about starting kindergarten. You tell people “yes” even if you are a little scared about the whole school thing. People a lot bigger than you keep telling you that you are a “big boy” even though you don’t feel very big at all.

Five is sweet one minute and naughty the next.

Five does not flush. Ever.

Five loves potato chips. Other acceptable food items include hot dogs (boiled, not grilled), tacos (meat and cheese only and no hard shells…yuck…) and bacon smothered in ketchup. Five can survive a week eating only these items and ice cream.

Five loves casting his line over, and over, and over. The actual fishing part? Not so much.

Five loves to swim if it means someone else will take off the leeches between his toes.

Five will still let you in the bathroom to help with his bath before bed.

Five will still let you kiss him goodnight.

Five is all “watch me!” and “help me!” and “just two more minutes!” It is stepping on bugs and asking five million questions. Five is pretending to be a superhero one minute and a dinosaur the next. It is poking at your older sister just to hear her yell and learning to pet the dog gently so she’ll play with you. Five is a fun, frustrating, age to be.

I have been out of the hands on, little kid, full-time parenting gig for a really long time. Now that Five and his sister, Nine, have gone home, I am remembering my own two children at the same ages. The memories are precious.

I might add that I am currently doing all this remembering while sprawled out on the couch. Next to the dog.